Improving Business Through Semantic Interoperability, Grid Computing, and Enterprise Integration

Jeffrey T. Pollock and Ralph Hodgson, John Wiley & Sons, 2004

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Complex Adaptive Systems

Self Organizing Systems

Systems of Systems

Swarm Systems

Evolving Systems

...and more

SDOE 683

Design of Agile Systems and Enterprises

Self Organizing Systems of Systems

Autonomous Agent Systems

Open Community Systems

Network Systems

Willful Systems

HIT Systems

Resilient Systems

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A Framework with

Requisite Variety, Parsimony, and Harmony

1)

A robot may not injure ahuman being or, throughinaction, allow a humanbeing to come to harm.

2)

A robot must obey ordersgiven it by human beingsexcept where such orderswould conflict with the FirstLaw.

3)

A robot must protect its ownexistence as long as suchprotection does not conflictwith the First or Second Law.

The Three Laws

of Robotics

(Isaac Azimov)

BANTAM BOOKS

This is a generative framework, the basis of emergence

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Evolving Framework

“In science fiction, the Three Laws of Robotics are a set of three ruleswritten by Isaac Asimov, which almost allpositronic

robots

appearingin his fiction must obey.Introduced in his 1942 short story"Runaround", although foreshadowed in a few earlier stories, the Lawsstate the following:

•A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow ahuman being to come to harm.

•A robot must obey orders given to it by human beings except wheresuch orders would conflict with the First Law.

•A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protectiondoes not conflict with the First or Second Law.

Later, Asimov added the Zeroth Law: "A robot may not harm humanity,or, by inaction, allow humanity to come to harm"; the rest of the lawsare modified sequentially to acknowledge this.

According to theOxford English Dictionary,

the first passage inAsimov's short story "Liar!" (1941) that mentions the First Law is theearliest recorded use of the wordrobotics. Asimov was not initiallyaware of this; he assumed the word already existed by analogy withmechanics,

hydraulics,

and other similar terms denoting branches ofapplied knowledge.

The Three Laws form an organizing principle and unifying theme forAsimov's fiction, appearing in hisRobot

series

and the other storieslinked to it, as well as hisLucky Starr series

of science-orientedyoung-adult fiction. Other authors working in Asimov's fictionaluniverse have adopted them, and references (oftenparodic) appearthroughout science fiction and in other genres.

Wikipedia, 9/4/07

This image, the cover toa now out-of-printedition ofI, Robot,

illustrates the first scenein Asimov's corpuswhich uses all threeLaws, though earlierstories presumed robotshad various built-insafeguards. As such,this cover depicts animportant moment in thehistory of sciencefiction, and it istherefore ofconsiderable scholarlyutility.

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z(n+1) = z(n)2

+ c

THE MANDELBROT SET

INFINITE VARIETY FROM A SIMPLE EQUATION

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Another Generative framework

“Companies seeking an “empowered” or decentralizedwork environment should first and foremost impose atight ideology, screen and indoctrinate people into thatideology, eject viruses, and give those who remain thetremendous sense of responsibility that comes withmembership in an elite organization. It means gettingthe right actors on the stage, putting them in the rightframe of mind, and then giving them the freedom to adlib as they see fit. It means, in short, that cult-liketightness around an ideology actuallyenables

"The mass never comes up to the standard of its best member, buton the contrary degrades itself to a level with the lowest.

[Henry David Thoreau]

"Madness is the exception in individuals but the rule in groups.

[Friedrich Nietzsche]

"I do not believe on the collective wisdom of individual ignorance.

[Thomas Carlyle, Historian]

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Emergence?

The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind, Gustave Le Bon:

"... it is stupidity and not mother wit that is accumulated.

"... can never accomplish acts demanding a high degree of intelligence.

"... always intellectually inferior to the isolated individual.

"A crowd, Le Bon argued, was more than just the sum of its members.Instead, it was a kind of independent organism. It had an identity and awill of its own, and it often acted in ways that no one within the crowdintended. [James Surowiecki,The Wisdom of Crowds]

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Doubleday, 2004

Examines three kinds of group problems:

-

Cognition

-

Coordination

-

Cooperation

Groups work well under certain conditions...

-

Need rules to maintain order and coherence

-

Individuals think and act independently

-

Individuals talk-to/learn-from each other

-

But, too much communication is bad

Conditions necessary:

-

Diversity

-

Independence

-

Decentralization-

with aggregation

Lesson:

-

Even the author can't accept the truth

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Barrett-Koehler, 1999, www.bkconnection.com

Cooperative Enterprise

SoS Concepts

-

Such as VISA–

Wisdom:

Lessons:

•aggregation not centralization

•minimal rules of order/coherence

•non-interference (independence)

•self-selection (decentralization)

•explicit synergy (collective value)

•High growth to large group, but then...

•Backslid to conventional structure

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Will

Control-System Model of Human Goal Pursuit

...Studies in Human and Organization Interaction

Amity and Enmity-

I, Rudolf Starkermann, 2003

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2-Partner Unconscious Attitude Linkage

Amity and Enmity-

I, Rudolf Starkermann, 2003

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Complexity and Systems of Systems

Amity and Enmity-

I, Rudolf Starkermann, 2003

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Cooperation Against an Enemy

Amity and Enmity-

II, Rudolf Starkermann, 2003

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Stability of Cooperation vs Intelligence/Speed

Amity and Enmity-

II, Rudolf Starkermann, 2003

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Is Selfless Interest Super Natural?

Amity and Enmity-

II, Rudolf Starkermann, 2003

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Amity and Enmity, Rudolf Starkermann, 2003

Editions a la Carte, Zurich, Switzerland

www.editions.ch, info@copycenter.ch

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Fast, Cheap and Out of Control

"Ghengis was a robot that could walk over anything in its path as it followed a person.Ghengis had six legs, bumper antennas, and infrared sensors for following the heatsignature of the person it is following. The software for Ghenghis was not organized as asingle program but fifty-one parallel programs Brooks called Augmented finite-statemachines, which can send numbers to components on fixed wires. The first forty eightAFSMs allow Ghenghis to scramble around rough terrain. Thewalk machine

uses sixoutputs that sequence the six legs to take steps. TheInfrared Sensors machine

receivesinput from six pyroelectronic sensors and each one has an on or off state that feeds into theProwl or Steer machine. TheProwl machine

is connected to inhibit the outputs of theWalkfinite-state machine. If the robot detected some infrared activity, it walked toward it. If thesensors had been rotated to the back of the robot, it would walk away. ... The insect-likeGhengis was a turning point for robotics. Ghengis followed an emergent trajectory that wasa product of both of its actions and its situation in the terrain of the world.

“This figure is a plot in three-dimensional phase space of a set of differentialequations in their chaotic regime. The line that twists through this figure indicatesthe trajectory of this system, a trajectory that is so intertwined that arbitrarily

The results were clear-cut, with littleroom for any sort of inscrutable God-given talent. Theelite musicians hadpracticed far more than the others."That's been replicated for all sorts ofthings--

chess players and athletes,dart players," says Ericsson.

"The only striking difference betweenexperts and amateurs is in thiscapability to deliberately practice."

The group even determined the numberof hours musicians must play tocompete at the highest professionallevel--

about 10,000, the equivalent ofpracticing four hours a day, every day,for almost seven years.

Mastering Expertise

Aug 21/28, 2006

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Effortful, Self-Critical Study

Studies

of

the

mental

processes

of

chess

grandmasters

have

revealed

clues

to

how

people

become

experts

in

other

fields

as

well.

Effortful

study

is

the

key

to

achieving

success

in

chess,

classical

music,

soccer

and

many

other

fields.

New

research

has

indicated

that

motivation

is

a

more

important

factor

than

innate

ability.

…

Psychologists

found

a

second

attribute

in

elite

players

that

is

less

obvious

than

sheer

hours

of

practice.

While

most

of

us

think

of

practice

as

the

repetition

of

tough

spots,

elite

musicians,

they

found,

took

a

different

approach.

They

were

intensely

self-critical,

identifying

weaknesses

at

an

incredibly

detailed

level.

They

examined

the

pattern

in

which

they

put

their

fingers

down,

the

way

their

muscles

tensed

--

and

they

continually

experimented

with

ways

to

improve.

In

other

words,

they

were

not

only

musically

creative,

they

were

creative

about

solving

problems.

Photo: Ethan Hill

Scientific American, Aug 2006

Aug 21/28, 2006

Scientific American, Aug 2006

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Marin Civic Center

Frank Lloyd Wright

Zen and the Art of System Design

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Frank Lloyd Wright

...only when we know what constitutes agood building...when we know that thegood building is not one that hurts thelandscape, but is one that makes thelandscape more beautiful than it wasbefore that building was built.

Stillregarded as the greatest 20th Centuryhouse ever built. Responding to thegeological strata of the site, his mastliketower of stacked shale stone seeminglyheld aloft three cantilevered levelshovering over Bear Run, a tiny river.

He expressed the rocky site bymetaphorically lifting the stones out of theriverbed to create the interior floor planes,using the largest rock, the Kaufman'schoice spot to sunbathe, as thehearthstone for the living room fireplace.And instead of orienting the structure toface the falls, Wright floated the entirestructure over the falls,merging the houseinseparably into the total natural picture.

Common themes converge here in a study of agilityacross a wide variety of system types, characterized byaspects of complex adaptive systems expressed as self-organized systems of systems. Studies will explore 4th

What do sexually transmitted diseases, the World Wide Web,the electric power grid, AlQueda

terrorists, and a cocktail partyhave in common? They are all networks. They conform tosurprising mathematical laws which are only now becomingclear. Albert-LaszloBarabasi

has helped discover some ofthose laws over just the past five years, and though they aresome pretty abstruse mathematics, he has written a clear andinteresting guide to them.

Not only has he attempted in this book to bring the math to non-mathematicians, he has shown why the work is important indown-to-earth applications. It is important for those multitudeswho have no taste for math to know that this is not a book full ofequations;Barabasi

knows that for most of his readers, doingthe math is not as important as getting a feel for what the mathdoes.

He explains the basic history of network theory, and then showshow his own work has turned it into a closer model of reality, amodel that most of us will recognize. Networks are all aroundus, and they are simply not random. Some of our friends, forinstance, are loners, while others seem to know everyone intown. Some websites, like Google and Amazon, we just cannotavoid clicking on or being referred to, but many others areobscure and you could only find them if someone sent you theiraddresses.Barabasi

calls these "nodes" with such anextraordinary number of links "hubs," and he and his studentshave found laws of networks with hubs, showing such things ashow they can continue to function if random nodes areeliminated but they fragment if the hubs are hit.

Barabasi

is currently doing research to show what intracellular proteins interact with other proteins, andtrue to form, some of them are hubs of reactions with lots of others. Finding the hubs of cancerous cells,for instance, and developing ways of taking them out, show enormous promise in the fight against cancer.And finding the hub terrorists in AlQueda

in order to take them out would be the best way to eliminate thenetwork.

[Amazon reviewer Rob Hardy]

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Review By

C. W. Richards

(Atlanta, GA United States)

Global guerrillas practice something Robb calls "open sourcewarfare," which means that in the modern environment,people even on different continents can form or join groups,train, and carry out operations much more quickly than in thepast or than the major legacy states can today.

As the groups learn from each other (and a sort of Darwinismselects out the unfit), a larger pattern forms,an "emergentintelligence,"

similar to a marauding colony of army ants, noone of which is very sophisticated, butoperating togetheraccording to simple rules, they are survivable, adaptable, andin a suitable environment, invincible.

To construct this model, Robb employs a number of conceptsthat may be new to people unfamiliar with modern systemstheory:close-coupled systems, self-organization, emergentproperties (particularly "intelligence"), stigmergy, and theconcept of complexity arising from simple processes.

He also introduces new tools for understanding how systemswork in the modern world: open source insurgency, globalvirtual states, superempowerment, systempunkts, and "blackswans."

Robb's general strategy is toimprove resilience by any meanspossible.

I could imagine, for example, that instead of buildingnew power plants that, along with their distribution systems,are vulnerable to disruption, the government provides marketincentives to improve resilience. The government couldincrease subsidies to utilities and require all of them to buyelectricity from homeowners during the day and sell it atreduced rates at night. As more people add power generationcapability to their houses-

solar, wind, geothermal,hydroelectric, whatever-

resilience improves. This may not bethe most efficient solution, but in the age of open sourceinsurgency, too much efficiency can be dangerous.

Robb makes a compelling case that this model will also workfor national security. It is certainly working very well for thegroups we are fighting.

Order emerges from chaos-

ready or not

Publisher: Wiley (April 20, 2007)

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Whether or not you care about leaderless, borderlessand/or decentralized organizations, labeled as starfishorganizations, they probably affect your life in some way oranother whether you have downloaded music or avoided it,dealt withPETA, looked up something in Wikipedia, hadactions of al-Qaeda affect your life in some way like stricterrestrictions at the airports, etc. In that sense, you might aswell get to know something about them to make better useof them or be prepared to deal with them effectively whenyou have to. If you read this book, you will likely not justwant to know or know more about them, but get involved tosee what they're all about or get more involved.

Written from both an overview and hands-on approach,this book is not only useful as a reference but also as amanual on the issue. The book identified the qualities ofstarfish organizations and what makes them effective, howanyone and everyone could start, sustain and/or getinvolved in these organizations, the types of people key tosuch organizations and how to combat them if you're onthe other side. Guidelines are offered and useful real lifeexamples illustrate what otherwise be just concepts.

…it did not address how government could use this book to decentralize since …government is the epitome of centralization. I work for government, and felt governmentbadly needed this, but had to think it through myself to come up with uses for attractingcolleagues to my Starfish and Spider for Lunch (and Learn) voluntary book review session.When I did, though, not only was I excited at the possibilities, but also at the challenge to tryto convince senior management of this, although that will take time. …if nothing else, myability to customize an application to government should tell you something about thebook's effectiveness as a manual.

Amazon Review byMinh Tan

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There is a lot of good stuff in here. Thedescriptions of the patch procedure andsimulated annealing, for instance, are verynice. This book can be useful to themotivated general reader, and to a scientistwho wants to see the very basics of somenovel ideas. It can also be useful for thosefamiliar with complexity as an account ofhow different pieces fit together.

It's important to remember that the book isnot a text in, say, biochemistry. Rather, it'sabout a way to see the world. At this stageof the idea development life cycle and in abasic treatment like this, it would becounterproductive to insist that thesemodeling tools reproduce everything weknow or start at the level of complication ofa mature science. If the book deals in toyexamples that relate to a different view forpieces of the world and how they relate, ithas done most of its job.

[Amazon reviewer]

$12.89 new, on Amazon

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"Sync" is a dissertation on synchronizationand its place in the universe. Standardentropy theory has always indicated that asystem that is orderly will, over time, moveto a position of less and less organization.However, that is not always consistent withobservations in real life.

StevenStrogatz

does an inspired job ofdescribing how synchronization exists insuch small areas as fireflies and plantleaves to much larger concepts of theuniverse and the asteroid belt in our solarsystem.

One of the more fascinating sections of thebook deals with synchronization in humanbeings.

…for those with a keen interest in the cyclesof the natural world and current researchinto this emerging field this is one of theforemost texts on the subject. It is a highlyrecommended read for anyone with a desireto learn about how natural tendenciestoward synchronization move us tospontaneous order.[Amazon Review by Harold McFarland]